10354

I depart tomorrow morning! At 7h05 my flight will leave the Calgary airport and I will begin the first leg of my journey. Calgary-Montreal-Paris-Niamey-Ouagadougou is the schedule! I will arrive in Ouagdougou on the 4th at 16h40 local time (12h40 Calgary time). Miriah and I will take the bus to Yako the morning of the 6th.

As I have considered this departure I have struggled to put into words the way in which you (as my supporters, friends and family) will all be with me in Burkina. I know it sounds cheesy so I will call on the words of the wise Frederich Buchener to help me...

“When you remember me, it means you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. I means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us.”

Know that whether I have known you my whole life or you are a new friend you have had an impact in my life. And so while in the next months countless miles may stand between us know that I will never forget where I came from. The people of Calgary, my home church, my friends and family will always remain a part of me.

The thing is, this isn't goodbye but simply a see-you-soon on my part (as I'll arrive home at the end August). Until the time comes that we see each-other face to face know that I carry memories of you with me. You remain a significant part of my journey whether you are near or far.

I look forward to updating you through my blog, and I anticipate news of how your summer is going.

*The actual distance between Calgary and Yako is 10354km (as the crow flies) so it’s not actually countless miles that will lay between us...

Just a quick prayer request...Please pray for safety and rest as we travel. Also please pray for little things like our bags arriving as they should, where they should, when they should.

Tô

A strange thought crept into my mind the other day: I am kind of excited to eat tô again.

It might be surprising, that I don’t sound more excited about this (although if you find it surprising I’d suggest you haven’t eaten tô before). The fact is I have a love/hate relationship with tô. I enjoy it but I also think it’s gross...it's just how it goes perhaps.

Tô (pronounced ‘toe’) is the main dish of Burkina Faso. It’s made from either corn flour or millet flour which is mixed with water and cooked over a fire until it forms a hard paste.

This process results in a texture that is very different from anything we eat in Canada. And, it’s the texture that is the biggest challenge for me.

Just an aside: one girl I know saw people patching a broken bicycle tire with a glob of tô- it’s got that kind of sticky, hard texture.

The tô itself is just the “paste” but it is generally served with a sauce. [I’ve also seen it eaten without sauce, or mixed with water and consumed as a drink...But with sauce is by far the most common way to eat tô and it’s where variety comes into the diet.]

The two most common types of sauces are gumbo and leaf sauces.

Gumbo sauce (pictured above) is made from dried fish, sliced veggies (tomatoes or onion), okra (which adds a stringy textures) and an assortment of spices.

The leaf sauces are my favourite: Baobab (the national tree of Burkina) or oseille (the sorrel plant) make delicious sauces. Sometimes the leaves are mushed up and cooked together, other times they are left whole and boiled with onions and spices.

As far as I can understand the average family eats tô nearly every meal (for lots of families leftover tô from the previous nights dinner is served as breakfast).

The older children at the orphanage eat tô two meals a day, and bouille (a porridge, most comparable to cream of wheat) for breakfast.

So am I excited to eat this? Maybe less so for the tô than for what tô represents: a gathering. Mealtimes in Burkina are best defined by the fact that they are a social gathering.

If you are walking past someone that is eating, their automatic response is "t'es invité" (you're invited) meaning you're welcome to join in the meal. Most times the courteous response is simply 'bon appetit' but, this demonstrates, the relational aspect of the Burkinabé even down to meals. It is this that draws me to be excited for tô.

the finish

I’m feeling a little like these guys probably were: I can see the finish line and I'm anxious to get there. Only I’m not in a donkey race...I’m just anticipating my last final of the semester.

Once I cross that finish line I can breathe a sigh of relief (the proverbial victory lap) and focus on getting ready to leave.

[Photos by Miriah Hodgins]

Thirteen

I’ve been following a lot of news reports about the volcanic ash over Europe. [Selfishly] I’ve been praying this whole problem clears up as soon as possible [so when my turn to fly comes around there won’t be problems].

I am thirteen days from departure. It is hard to believe two weeks from now I will be stepping onto the tarmac in the land that I love. Excitement and stress (thoughts of everything I need to do before I can leave) compete for my mental energy. It's not too fair of a fight though, as excitement seems to win a lot.

image from here

(Re)defining

A few months ago a friend asked me what I would do differently when I go back to Burkina this time around. At the time (I’m sorry to admit) I acted as though I hadn’t been thinking about it much and so it was a hard question to answer. In reality it was hard to answer because I’d been thinking about it a lot.

When I begin to process and decide on things I will change a small switch goes off in my head and somewhere a play button in my memory is pushed: still snapshots, slow motion movies and snippets of conversation come together to form a well rehearsed segment that rewinds and plays forward until I press stop.

This is the amalgamation of painful memories I have brought with me from Burkina. It usually starts with an image of the face of a child I wish I showed more love. Somewhere in the middle is a slow-motion, film-style memory of a man I met and had an opportunity to bless but, I was so wrapped up in myself in that moment that I missed the opportunity. Nearer to the end of the segment there is the soundtrack of a conversation in which I had an opportunity to use my words to undo hurt, and chose instead to stay quiet.

This segment of memories represents the regret I brought home from Burkina. For a long while, although I couldn’t verbalize it, I thought admitting I hold onto regret was somehow admitting failure. Perhaps, I thought, regret was demonstrative that I had not achieved something I was supposed to in Burkina. After a while though, I began to recognize the fallacy of this assumption. The fact that I was allowing myself to decide I wish I’d acted differently was proof that I had taken something away from the situation- as painful as it might be. I think failure would be if I came away having learned nothing.

There are moments, although fewer now, in which I still slip into guilt over these memories. Mostly though, I don’t allow myself to dwell on this regret, but I do allow it to take a productive form (rather than the unproductive component of guilt) by allowing it to help me decide what I want to do differently.

I want to put into action the lessons that I’ve learned from these painful memories: lessons that are hard to explain because they are so bound-up and tied to my heart.

This time around there are things I will endeavor to focus on that I didn’t so much last time, and things I will endeavor to not focus on that I focused on too much last time. There are ways in which I hope my heart has been changed (and will continue to change) so I can love more and give more. All of this towards the goal of living more selflessly; more like Jesus.

I struggled with a way to sum this all up because it seems like a heavy subject. Maybe then, I should tell you how excited I am by this. Although it’s not an opportunity to redo things, it is an opportunity to put into action the things I learned where I learned them. While I don’t believe the lessons I learned are restricted to Burkina there is something special about being able to return with these thoughts on my heart and mind.

Gift in Gold

Before going to Burkina last year I read everything and anything I could get my hands on about it. Travel books, blogs and government websites became my reading material of choice. Several sites noted that in the province of Passoré (in which Yako is located) there are many gold mines. If possible, they suggested, speak with local chiefs in the area to arrange a visit.

So when the opportunity arose to have a guided tour of a local mine I took it! We were in the village searching for a family and the man helping us offered to take me to the mines. We set out: him on his mobilette and me on the back of a moto, although once close enough we walked the rest on foot. I had no expectations: it seemed impossible to prepare myself in the few minutes it took for us to find the miners that morning.
My guide called out information to me as we walked and panicked when I walked too close to a shaft. I smiled, stepping away and he let me come closer to look down. I couldn’t see anything but dirt and dark...He pointed out deep grooves in the packed dirt: “steps to climb out” he said and I nodded.

I watched the faces of the young men riding their bikes back towards the village for sieste. Their faces were tinted orange from working the ground, and hands coated white in something they’d dug up. The landscape around me was a shocking chalky-white in contrast to the burnt red I had grown accustomed to.

Of the miners we met there was a woman who didn’t want her photo taken but let me watch as she laboriously worked at the hard earth to start a new hole.

There was a man who showed me the gold he’d found that morning. I feared if I breathed too hard it might disappear (picture to the right- you can expand all the pictures by clicking on them) and he admitted the days and days of work it had taken him to get would pay him less than 1$.

And the children: it was them I was least prepared to meet in such a context. At home in Canada the extent of their labour might be shoveling a neighbours driveway but, here they anxiously climbed down their mine shaft to show me how far they had dug. I stood at the top trying to smile to show them they were doing a good job, but behind the smile I did nothing but pray for their safety. As we watched them climb down my guide took to telling me about how dangerous the shafts are and how often they

collapse. I nodded and listened, secretly wanting to ask if he could wait until they were safely up before telling me. 'Men, women (often with a baby tied to their back) and children die when the earth they are mining tumbles in around them' he explained to me. We had passed their graves on the way to the mine.

We left the same way we came, stopping at the fork in the road where our guide was to go left and we would turn right towards Yako. We turned off our engines to sit and chat. He was engaging and I was sorry he cut the conversation short because he was concerned about me being out in the sun for so long. He told me of his time in the Navy (Cote D’Ivoire) and the places he’d seen around the world. He talked of Europe: the people he’d met and what he’d learned of life.

We'd uprooted him from a morning with his friends under a baobab sipping millet beer. He'd spent hours working with us to find a family and then toured me through the mines. This man, tatooed and wrinkled, smiling at us from his little blue mobilette was Burkinabé in every sense of the word: the interruption was no interruption at all to him. I offered him money for taking me to the mines. He rejected my offer explaining that I was Burkinabé and he couldn't accept it from me because of it 'and regardless this is what we do for our sisters' he exclaimed.

At first I struggled to class this experience at the mines because it couldn't be classed. What was it to me I thought? It was eye opening and heartbreaking yet it was beautiful and real. It is was a glimpse of Africa and of Burkina. It was a gift.

Strength in Faso

I was thinking today about a family I met on a trip out of Yako. We sat in the shade, under a tree in the middle of the village. The discussion held was anything but private, as everyone gathered around the tree to watch the nasara. I watched the faces of the family we were meeting and was taken aback by the look in their eyes. The deep sadness I witnessed struck a chord in my heart. Their sadness was not without reason: they had lost their daughter and their sister. It was a life stolen early by disease.

While sitting, watching the village children gather around me I knew this family's pain was not unique. I recognized I was standing in a land that knew sorrow.

And yet I recognized Burkina is strong. And Burkina is full of joy. I have never met people with such an amazing capacity to look beyond their own pain and suffering to the needs of others.

When I think of this I think of Rosaline’s family. Rosaline, a tiny premature baby at Sheltering Wings, passed away last spring after fighting a sickness that was just too much for her little body.
When her Father and Uncles received news of her death they rode their bikes 35km in 45C heat to the orphanage to thank us for what we had done for Rosaline. Her father’s face was filled with such sorrow; this man had lost his wife and daughter in the same month. And yet what he desired strongest to do was tell us he was grateful for what we had done to help her.
This is the strength of Burkina Faso.

Sometimes I feel at a loss for words when I want to describe this country. (I feel I do it an injustice.)

I want you to know about the things I struggle to write about (like disease and malnutrition because they exist there). As much as I’m intimidated to write about them sometimes, I will.

So when I talk about the hard things, just remember there is joy and strength.

on se fait rigoler

I was thinking of Estelle a lot this week and today I was thinking of her laugh.

Heart Matters

I remember a friend that was headed back to Burkina after some time away telling me she could feel her heart turning back towards Burkina. The concept wasn’t foreign to me: the idea of God turning our hearts towards where He calls was something we’d discussed many times.

Although in one sense our hearts never leave the places we love I do believe our hearts focus does shift.

Once I was home from Burkina last July I struggled greatly because my heart’s focus remained in Burkina. I lived for a while in limbo trying to figure out where I was and struggling to unite thoughts, a heart and a body that resided on different continents.

I knew Calgary was where I was called to be for this next period of my life and so found myself thrown into a time of trust and period of prayer.

I can’t tell you when it happened because it happened slowly and in stages. But I looked back one day and realized that my heart was here (it was a beautiful feeling). God graced with me with contentment in his plan and for where He had called me to be. Burkina has remained on my heart but my focus has been redirected towards Calgary in these past months.

Although I think of Burkina multiple times daily (and some days simply sorely miss it) and as much as I’ve had my share of ‘grumpy gus’ days I really like Calgary and school. I love that God has turned my heart towards this place.

Last week I realized my heart’s focus will shift again when I go back to Burkina. As the reality of that realization sunk over me I felt a moment of panic. I feared my heart being pulled too much in the direction of Burkina too soon before I depart in May.

And so I prayed: “God, don’t let my heart get ahead of me...”

Please don’t misunderstand me: I want to go to Burkina and I know God has asked me to go to Burkina. But do understand there is a scary phase in which your heart is not where you are and it is that phase that brought me timidly before the Lord.

Equally I fear the phase of ‘limbo’ upon returning next fall. It took a long time for me to find balance in loving Burkina from afar. I hope and pray I am better equipped to find a place in which my heart will be focused here next fall.

And so here’s my honest confession: just because I am going somewhere I know doesn’t mean there aren’t things that scare me.

This fear, like my other concerns, I will lift up to the Lord and trust that He has the answers and a plan.

Phillipians 4:6-7 (the message)

Don't fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.

[photo taken from here]

Nap time?

This little guy doesn't look too comfortable, but when you need a nap you need a nap.

In Burkina everyone takes Sieste. It's a wonderful thing and a reminder that life doesn't need to be a rush.

Sieste.

Exciting Development!

My friend Miriah Hodgins will be coming to Burkina this summer!

I’m super excited to be able to travel to Burkina with Miriah and to work alongside her for May and June. I’m sure I’ll miss her lots when she leaves Burkina mid-July for an IVCF cultural exchange to China, but I’m very excited about where God is calling her.

Miriah and I met each other in Yako last summer. Only God could orchestrate for us two Albertans to meet in Yako and now be traveling back together. He is good!

Josué

This is Josué! He’s about fifteen and in high school. Josué is very intelligent and super witty.

Josué always had a wonderful way of pointing out things that would make me laugh: his voice would shift to a sarcastic tone, he’d wag his finger around a little and I'd be done for.

(Below is Josué tickling Joseph. He's really good with the little ones. )

He reminded me a lot, of my younger brother. Mostly it was his sense of humour, but there was something else too. Perhaps his reserved and gentle demeanour.

A couple times last spring Josué came over and cooked with us. It was such a fun way to spend time with just him, or him and one other child. I was always amazed by his interest in cooking and by his ability to chop or slice (it’s rare to find boys in Burkina that can cook..) and by how much fun he seemed to have with it (he also liked some of the things we cooked! Which I saw as a bonus.) One night as he was helping us I asked him about where he’d learned so many tricks to things in the kitchen. He explained that he’d learned from his sisters and that they used to cook together all the time.
I looked at Josué and was reminded how hard it must be. His sisters are in the same country but, he doesn’t see them often. It’s funny, I thought, that it would take the boy that reminds me of my brother to make me remember that these children have siblings they miss too. These children have family that exist beyond the walls of the orphanage that I’m certain they must think about a lot. The children have worries that go far beyond the worries I could conceive at their age. And yet, they still wag their finger at me and make me laugh or come over just to cook potato soup with me. Josué, like many of the other children, taught me a great deal.

One evening there was the smell of rain in the air. Everyone was laying bets on whether it would rain or not. As we walked past the boys room Josué called out to us. He explained that if we had peanuts in the house they’d go bad by morning because the rain was coming. The better option, he continued, was infact, for us to give them to him and he’d take good care of them for us; his stomach would do the job of ensuring the peanuts not go bad. As he got more and more into his story he got more boys involved in it's telling. They acted out for us reasons why we should give them peanuts and came to us explaining their personal belief about how peanuts go bad when the rain comes. Josué got so involved in the telling of the story he threw himself on the floor (as if he were fainting) for a dramatic finish. Needless to say my insides were bursting after this twenty minute dramatic production and the boys were rewarded with a bag full of peanuts. (Or rather I was rewarded because the peanuts didn’t spoil. That is of course what Josué explained to me after all.)

This is my favourite picture of Josué because I can't look at it without laughing (sometimes to the point of crying..).

It was taken while Josué was cleaning his room. He says the shirt was for protecting him for breathing in the dust and I recall something about beating dust from his mattress with sticks, or possibly I made that up and it was just a part of his costume... Either way Josué cleaned his room (for the first time in a while..) and then ran around adorned in his costume. He posed for some photos and generally made us laugh for a good long while.

[Miriah is the photographer of the last & wonderful photo. Thanks for letting me borrow it!]

Achille

I'd like to introduce to you my friend Achille.

Achille and I are the same age and he was a good friend of mine at Sheltering Wings when I was there last year. We used to read together on Tuesdays and Fridays. He’d read the story outloud and we’d work together on tools for reading for comprehension.

He is super intelligent. If I used an English word in front of him, and he could pick it up and start using it too. He would also pick up English words randomly and come to me asking for definitions. He hasn’t started learning English in school yet but he already speaks English some and can write some too.

He loves to draw and spends a lot of time working on beautiful flowers. He’s a master at Sudoku. I would give up on a Sudoku puzzle that I’d spent hours trying to solve and he’d quietly erase my work only to solve it in a matter of minutes. Maybe he can help me improve my Sudoko this year (although I sincerely doubt it; it's just not my forte). Achille got a late start at school, but last year he was tied for first in his class. I haven’t heard how school is going this year but I have no doubt that come the end of the year he'll have completed primary school and will be moving on to greater things.

Some of my favorite memories of Achille are the mornings he would come in and play with the babies: he would cuddle them, feed them their lunch and chase the toddlers around the play area.

We had a team come to the orphanage last year to install a water tower and piping. Achille volunteered to help one of the guys on the team and spent many days working with him. They formed quite a bond and it was beautiful to see the way they communicated and worked together even when they didn’t share a common language. Achille was always willing to help out. If ever I needed someone to walk into town with me Achille was always willing to come along and when the situation called for it volunteered to translate from French to Mooré.

Achille came to visit us at the house a lot. I’d see his smiling face pop up in the doorway as he excitedly greeted us in english. He’d join Liz and I in our living room and we’d chat about school or upcoming soccer matches. Sometimes I’d be working on something and Achille would sit with me as I completed it. Most often we’d just sit and have one conversation drawn out by long periods of quiet. It was Achille, I think, that introduced me best to the cultural normalcy of silence: the fact that it’s okay to sit and not talk for long periods of time. I don’t know how much the silence says or doesn’t say, but being okay to just be in the quiet is strangely comforting. I grew to love the way in which the Burkinabé embrace silence as a part of conversation.

On one of his evening visits Achille told me an elaborate story about his visit to Canada (he’s never been here) that had me in near hysterics. Fortunately he described Canada as not as cold as everyone says it is (good on ya Achille!).

St. Patty

Maybe by now you’ve noticed the tagline i’ve added to the top of my page.

God's strength to pilot me; God's might to uphold me,

God's wisdom to guide me,God's eye to look before me,

God's ear to hear me, God's word to speak for me,

God's hand to guard me, God's way to lie before me,

God's shield to protect me

These lines are a small part of the Lorica written by St. Patrick. I discovered the Lorica last year, while in Burkina and began to pray through it regularly.

The word Lorica is a latin word meaning shield or breastplate. I have to believe it is no accident that St. Patrick chose this as his title. I don’t believe that the Lorica is a prayer of protection from all the troubles of the world. I do believe that it is a prayer of surrender to our sovereign Lord and that is protection in another way entirely.

Another set of lines in the Lorica:

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,

The Lorica is my prayer for these coming weeks in Calgary and for the months ahead of me in Burkina: that I will allow God to be my everything, to give me love so I can love like Him even when I feel I can’t, to allow Him to give me patience when my earthly patience runs dry and to give me strength when I am tired. I pray that I will trust Him wherever I am and in whatever situation I encounter.

Ferdinand

Little Ferdinand arrived back at the orphanage my first few days there last year. He’d been placed with a Burkinabe family, but due to circumstances out of Sheltering Wings control (and nothing to do with Ferdinand himself) he was brought back a few months later. My heart broke to see Ferdinand’s heart breaking in the weeks following his return.

When Ossias (a child that spent 3 months at Sheltering Wings because of difficult family circumstances) spent his first night at the orphanage crying Ferdinand cuddled up beside him, stroked his hair and whispered words of comfort to him. At bed time Ferdinand showed Ossias where he slept and told him to sleep beside him. His simple acts of love towards Ossias showed us Ferdinands tender heart.

(Below: Ferdinand and Ossias)

A gentle spirit, but full of life Ferdinand was always up to something that made me smile. I remember him making a bow and arrow: his bow he formed of a long stick and a strip of rubber and his arrow a shorter stick and a pen cap. He then made his way around the courtyard, with a series of leaps and giant strides, attempting to shoot things.

Ferdinand often came to visit me at home. I’d pull out the stack of barbies and he’d tenderly dress barbie, walk her around the house and make her interact with the barbies Therese was playing with. Eventually though, Ferdinand would always want to play with the cars. Sometimes he would line them all up in rows or sometimes he would take a couple out and make noises and he drove them around the house.

Ferdinand and I used to read together (with Therese too). He was repeating first grade, although not because he lacks intelligence. We would read through a Scooby Doo book: me stopping whenever a word like ‘le’ or ‘la’ came up and Ferdinand shouting it out with a triumphant smile.

I loved to watch him play soccer with the older boys and to see him take care of the little babies. I used to love when Ferdinand would sing because a look of pure joy would come over his face. Sometimes he would sing with the women as they cared for the babies, other times I’d catch a glimpse of his head bobbing as he danced and sang in church.
Thanks for getting to know Ferdinand a bit today.